Kevin Bachus Talks Next-Gen Console Wars 95
conq writes "In a piece on BusinessWeek, former Microsoft exex Kevin Bachus, who was part of the team who pitched the XBox to Bill Gates gives his opinion on the Microsoft/Sony gaming war: '...I believe that regardless of who comes out on top this time, the margin will be the closest it's been since the heady days of Nintendo and Sega. And as always, the winners will be the consumers and the publishers.'"
Kevin Bachus? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kevin Bachus? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Kevin Bachus? (Score:2)
I KNEW it! (Score:2)
Re:I KNEW it! (Score:2)
Bacchus' Wine grants beserk status, so obviously he'll continue to work until the battle is over, even if he's already been fired.
Oh really? (Score:4, Funny)
Gates later expounded that the army has acheived a stunning victory on the african front, completely routing our enemies in Eurasia and taking over a million prisoners. In other news, chocolate rations will be increased to 25 grams a week...
Hardware vs Software (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Usually Nintendo's best games are made by Nintendo so I don't see that even being a problem. Look at N64, not many third party games, but in my opinion the system was awesome, include that it was only $150 at launch.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:1)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
$399, you mean.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Wrong. For $299, you don't get ANY option to save your games. The Nintendo 64 cartridges had memory in them so you saved directly to the game. Even though NOBODY wanted the Core system, I'll concede to $339. The cost of the core unit with a memory card. I'll just ignore the whole backwards compatibility and some games not running on it until you upgrade thing.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Probably wise, since the N64 wasn't BC at all and didn't offer any bugfix mechanism (and don't tell me none of the games had bugs). I'm not aware of any games which need the HD to run, patches or no patches. But I'll agree that you need some kind of storage to get the most out of the console (much like the PS/PS2/NGC, etc).
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
FFXI is supposed to require the hard drive. However, Microsoft has stated that they want their developers to work with both scenarios. Time will tell, so I'll let that argument rest for now. (That's what I get for talking about the 360 even though I don't own one.
There is a perceptual difference about the lack of a hard drive, though. As I mentioned, not many (and I mean very low numbers of people) wanted the Core system.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
I'm not picking on you in particular, just pointing out a fallacy that I see around here a lot. It's innacurate to compare prices to older technology, simply because the price of electronic components is decreasing so rapidly. It's virtually impossible to know whether the N64 or the 360 provides more tech for the dollar with respect to their own time frames.
Again, don't take
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Pardon? There were 19 launch titles, that's pretty good in itself. That list included one of the best racing games ever (PGR3), a pretty fine WW2 shooter (CoD2), and a decent survival horror game (Condemned). All those titles have over 80% average review scores. In my world that's not "crap". I also happened to really like Kameo, Quake 4 and Amped 3, but the praise was slightly less universal for those. I challenge you to compare the 360's launch line up
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:1)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
No RPG == Bad Console.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
If we're talking "launch window" then I believe Sim City, Populus, Lemmings, Contra, and several other high profile games qualify as well.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
This isn't crazy MS fanboysim - I'm sure the PS3 and Rev will also have great launch lineups - but some people seem to have a
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
But considering that Microsoft is relaunching [slashdot.org] the XBox360, one might argue that the launch window is still open.
Re:Hardware vs Software (Score:2)
You seem to forget, opinions are suggestive. The games are "crap (to me)" as long as there are none that I want to play.
What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:4, Insightful)
How someone can speak about war, when only one soldier was there !
Where PS3 ? Where Revolution ?
When PS3 ? May be in 2007 ? May be !
When Revolution ? May be in 2007 ? May Be !
What a war !
Re:What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:1)
Re:What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:2)
Re:What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I am looking forward towards it. They are really the one one that is working on new features other then "bigger, better, faster graphi
Re:What a WAR only one soldier ! (Score:2)
War? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft is nothing more than a company that came in last place in the current gen console race behind Nintendo. And Microsoft's second entry into the console market is doing roughly two to three times WORSE than the first Xbox.
The 360 is:
1) Completely dead in Japan
2) Almost dead in Europe
3) Sold a pathetic 190k consoles in March in the US - five months into its life and it is getting outsold by the six year old Sony PS2
And there are 360 sitting unsold on store shelves in every major US retailer for over a month now. The 360 is on track to sell no more than three million units this year. That's one dead console.
The 360 is a marketplace failure. No one outside of the most diehard of Dreamcast and Xbox fans gives a damn about the system. Notice the major switch to pushing Vista gaming recently by Microsoft... They see the writing on the wall for the Xbox project.
The next gen race is going to be brutal between Sony and Nintendo - with Nintendo standing a good chance of actually outselling Sony in Japan this upcoming console cycle and selling probably around N64 levels in the US and Europe. Microsoft is no longer relevant to the console market.
Re:War? (Score:3, Insightful)
Not with only one console on the market, no. PSP vs. 360 is hardly a war. But come December, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of commercial aggression.
And there are 360 sitting unsold on store shelves in every major US retailer for over a month now. The 360 is on track to sell no more than three million units this year. That's one dead console.
Actually, they are selling like crazy in my part of the woods. My area got royally shafted on supplies
Re:War? (Score:2)
Where I live, (Sharon PA) I can get a 360 IF it's a core system. If you want a premium system they're still hard to come by.
As for the grandparent. I see fake grass with the smell of plumber. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars [wikipedia.org], Xbox is beating the Cube by over 3 million.
Sony PlayStation 2: 100 Million
Nintendo GameCube: 20.61 Million
Microsoft Xbox: 23 Million
And that using more up to date Nintendo sales figures.
The only thing going for
Re:War? (Score:5, Informative)
Someone send those unsold consoles down here to San Antonio so we can get all the customers off our backs! Every major and minor retailer here hasn't been able to keep them in stock more than a day. We got 18 of them the other day and sold out within 4 hours. I'm wondering if that 190K number is because the areas that need more consoles don't have them and the ones that have them in abundance have already sold to all the customers that wanted them.
Re:War? (Score:2)
Re:War? (Score:2)
Re:War? (Score:1)
Personally, I love my Dreamcast and don't really care for either XBox. My friend left me his for a week and even modded and loaded up with videos and emulators and extra features, I touched it maybe three times that entire week. I usually either stuck with watching tv/dv
Re:War? (Score:1)
Re:War? (Score:1)
That's normal. If it was selling as much in Europe as it's selling in the US that would be strange because so far all consoles had less than half of the US sales numbers in Europe. The US market for videogames (or at least consoles) is about twice as large as the European one. I think the distribution is different with P
Re:War? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:War? (Score:2)
Re:War? (Score:2)
Seriously, insisting that the 360 is dead just to get the idea out there when all other evidence indicates that it's doing just fine is getting a bit old. really. We're tired of it. People won't start thinking "the 360 is dead" just because you planted the idea in their heads. Not when numbers speak otherwise. And even if they did, you're only talking about the slashdot community, who probably wouldn't buy a microsoft product anyway.
Industry Has-Been Shoots Mouth Off: Film at Eleven (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Industry Has-Been Shoots Mouth Off: Film at Ele (Score:2)
Re:Industry Has-Been Shoots Mouth Off: Film at Ele (Score:1)
Thank you (Score:2)
Bacchus has zero credibility. I hope Infinium paid him well, because I wouldn't trust him with another system launch.
Between Nintendo and 360 (Score:2)
1) The playstion 3 is NOT $600-700 as stated by a the french sony spokesman (no link, on
2) They are able to hit xmas US 06 with ample supply (I think they will run into the same probs as the 360).
Number 1 is based on the fact that 600-700 is way too much for a console. Buying another controller, recharge kit, and game, and you're already into middle ground PC costs, plus you can get a 360 and a revol
Re:Sony not $600 (Score:2)
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/05
which is the last article to bring up PS3. If you have comments contrary to mine, back them up. because I havn't seen them anywhere.
The Next-Next Gen will be interesting (Score:2)
So whatever comes after the Xbox360 will be what's interesting. Xbox was just a test to see how many dumb people the console market offers (result: A lot). Xbox360 is M$'s try to do a proper console, and like windos 2.0 it's behind the competition and isn't there, yet. But Xbox720 (or whatever) will be like windos 3.0 - almost there, and good enough for way too many people.
Ther
Re:The Next-Next Gen will be interesting (Score:1)
The difference (Score:2)
XBox Needs Japan, according to MS (Score:2)
According to this [dsrevolution.com], the 360 is going nowhere in Japan (note: I can't vouch for the accuracy of the page, but I have no reason to doubt it). And these are recent numbers, about a month old. In addition, remember this:
"Microsoft's head of games division, Peter Moore, has repeatedly said that there would be no true success for Microsoft without Xbox's success in Japan," Sensui said.
Taken from a recent article here [reuters.com].
Ok, so the 360 has been selling about 1000 a week in Japan. We're like, what, 15 weeks into the
Not at these price points... (Score:2)
I can only assume that a ps3 will be in that higher price range, around $400 to $500 at release (and as a side note thats when MS will drop the 360's price, or offer free games with it, or free xbox live or something).
A Mac Mini costs $599.99 and can dual boot into windows and then run all those MS compatible games.
I think a lot of people are going to consider the nextgen consoles way too expensive for too few features
Re:Not at these price points... (Score:1)
Re:No one cares about game content? (Score:2)
Re:No one cares about game content? (Score:2)
Also, haven't pretty much all of the Final Fantasy games ever released on a Sony system come out on PC as well? And yet they still sold systems?
Oblivion is an RPG, and it is on 360, and it is doing quite well on that system. Fastest selling game since launch. It is also doing quite well on PC, but that's not stopping it from selling well on any other platform.
Point is, if the game is available on a system, that system has that game.
Re:No one cares about game content? (Score:2)
I don't care if you or anyone else does or doesn't like any game or console in the universe. I am just getting sick of people assuming that everyone in the world thinks like them, so if they think something sucks then it inherently does.
Re:No one cares about game content? (Score:1)
Winners? (Score:3, Insightful)
And as always, the winners will be the consumers and the publishers.
I don't wish to sound so pessimistic here, but I really can't see how -- between the 360 and the PS3 -- the consumers will be winners in this coming console generation (I don't think 'war' applies as it just seems like a pissing contest between Microsoft and Sony). Their development focus seems centered on the wrong things, for one. Number crunching, graphical horsepower, and 3rd party developer support is all fine and well, but it doesn't always make for fun games.
The biggest issue, though, is price. The 360, adequately equipped with a selection of nearly-requisite accessories, is well over $400. And that's before the first game (I'm not counting Live! content because not everyone has broadband). When the PS3 is released, I suspect, as rumors have suggested, that it's price will be slightly higher. Games in this round are also expected to be more expensive for both consoles, and who wants to pay $70 for a sequel of a sequel that's lackluster at best?
I remember rolling up into a Toys 'R Us back in the 80s and buying a brand new Nintendo Entertainment System for just under $100US. Yeah, a 'current-gen' console shortly after nation-wide rollout for UNDER ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS. Unthinkable nowadays, isn't it? Toss in my first game -- The Legend of Zelda -- and I was set and still under the $200 mark. New games? At the time, I rented them. If I liked them, I bought them, and they certainly didn't cost $70.
Rising cost of living, rising gas prices, and the rising price of sub-standard entertainment (film, music, television, and video games)... I can't see how the consumers are winners.
I'm not saying there won't be some good games on either console, but it's so bloody expensive. And for gamers on a budget, it's completely out of reach until sometime after the six-month mark when those pennies have been saved and the console price drops a bit. I mean, I don't even get to play many of the new PC games until they get into the $10-$20 bargain level because of financial issues.
Nintendo, on the other hand, seems better-focused on providing an actual product at a price that's easier to swallow. They seem focused on fun, too, and while I'm sure it'll have its share of games that suck, I feel that the majority will be innovative and entertaining.
The bottom line for all three companies is to push a product and make a profit, as it is with any company, really, but I believe Nintendo has a better hold on what people are after, and they seem to care more about their customer having fun. And in video games, it's about enjoying yourself. And it doesn't hurt that they also conscientious about costs to the consumer.
In the end? Well, I'll probably end up buying all three consoles, wallet willing, but I foresee my first purchase in this generation being a Nintendo console.
Re:Winners? (Score:2)